Thursday, September 6, 2012

At least the Polar Bears are Safe Now!

After all...as good children know from school
"Teacher says we have to change our light bulbs, or all the polar bears will die!"

Of course, as seen from the "How bans are wrongly justified" section, point 6:
Not only are the energy savings negligible from the start, a fraction of 1% of energy use or c.1% grid electricity, without all the other provisos listed:
But it applies in particular to the main CO2 "culprit", coal, even when unmodified coal is actually used in the first place. This is because of the off-peak post 7pm time of most incandescent lighting use, and the coal that may be burned anyway at such times for operational reasons, from the difficulty of turning down the plants from higher daytime use - an issue which incidentally also applies to newer day - night cycling coal plants (which tend to have lower CO2 emissions anyway).
This is also shown by studies like the extensive APTECH analysis on day-night coal plant cycle issues, as referenced.

Now, try telling that to your local politician or journalist...
much easier for them to wave funny bulbs around or print cute pictures of polar bears!